Aviation Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for aircraft pilots, mechanics, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I was watching the Disney movie Planes with my younger brother, and one of the characters/planes perform a emergency landing on an aircraft carrier.
And that got me thinking...
In case of emergency, is it possible (doable) to land a small propeller-driven aircraft, like a Cessna 350 Corvalis on a military aircraft carrier?
A South Vietnamese Air Force Cessna O-1 landed on the USS Midway at the end of the Vietnam War. Fixed-wing VNAF aircraft usually flew to Thailand, and the naval evacuation was carried out by helicopter (with crews sometimes ditching in the water after the flight decks ran out of room), but this O-1 pilot wound up making his first carrier landing, with his family on board and an hour of fuel left.
Wikipedia wrote a paragraph about it and has another couple photos.
As Lnafziger says, a conventional landing is impossible for anything more than a tiny aircraft STOL aircraft (Carrier 'runway' length: 200m). As you state however, if it was an emergency, the aircraft carrier has a special net which it can fold up to stop planes, and since it can stop an F18 Hornet, it could probably take your Cessna as well :)
A light aircraft (e.g. C172) has a landing roll of around 500 feet. There are no 50 foot obstacles to consider so the 1500 foot to a 50 foot obstacle isn't required. Thats from 60 knots to a full stop. Going from 60 knots to 30 knots (30 knots is the wind over the deck) means it will be less than half that.
So the problem is not one of the aircraft, most light aircraft with similar performance are perfectly capable of doing it without a landing hook or anything like that. The problem is the pilot, with no training or practice this will be very hard to do because the deck is moving in the swell, and its also moving sideways due to the angled deck. A bad crash is the most likely outcome.
An ex navy pilot with recent experience. Now thats a different story, even without arrestor hook etc etc they would find it easy compared to landing their big heavy jet on the deck.
The Corvalis is a hot ship in light aircraft terms with a much longer ground roll, so this would be tight. Again with skill (ex navy pilot etc etc) and wind over the deck (you can get going on 30 knots from the ship even if the wind is calm) I think it could still be done.
The published landing distance for the Cessna is the certified distance - that's what it needs in a worst-case, no-flaps, high, hot, zero-wind landing. Any pilot will tell you that they rarely need the whole runway.
Consider the big picture of the aircraft carrier. The ocean is HUGE (ask the people searching for Malaysia 370) and rather featureless. Private planes rarely cross large paths of open ocean as it's often the longest route to where they are going rather than the shortest. So the chances of a carrier battle group being anywhere near you are extremely small. If your plane is flying well enough to find the CBG, come in behind and line up for a landing then you probably don't need it in the first place.
In theory, light aircraft would have no technical problems landing on the deck. Lots of room with a 30-50kt headwind, no need for a tailhook or nets as you don't weigh 30,000 pounds or come in at 200kt IAS on full afterburner. The chances of a non-navy-trained pilot hitting the touchdown zone of a runway moving away from them at 30kt and pitching up and down several meters is laughably small. You would either miss and have to go around (again, if you can do that, you don't need the carrier in the first place) or make a mess on the fantail. Even navy pilots do this on occasion, but they have ejection seats.
In a 20 knot headwind and with the ship making 30 knots a Cessna 172 could hover over the deck of a carrier, choosing a "comfy" spot to try to set her down. Remember a ship is moving up and down, twisting side to side, yawing, pitching, and more. The heavier the seas the more movement you have. With a slight headwind a pilot could land a 172 on a carrier deck that was still in port. C130 only needed 270 feet while the ship was underway, so a C172 wouldn't need more.
STOL aircraft could fly backwards from the bow to the Stern. Having flown in 45 knot winds at really slow speeds, it appeared to people on the ground that I was flying my aircraft backwards as my ground speed reached negative numbers. STOL aircraft land in really short distances - some as little as 27 feet.
In theory, yes it is possible to do so. It all depends on the aircraft type, approach speeds, sea and weather conditions, etc.
During the end of the Vietnam War, a South Vietnamsee refugee landed an OV-1 Bird Dog on the deck of the USS Midway (CV-41). So, yes light airplanes have made unarrested landings on carriers in the past. If your in a light airplane with a stall speed around 30kts and very proficient on your short field landings, this should be no sweat, provided the ship can steam either at, or into the prevailing wind at 30 or so kts. If you're flying a dedicated bush airplane eg an Aviat Husky, Carbon Cub, etc designed for STOL operations, it may even be possible to stick a 3-wire (touch down and hold the main wheels in the third cross deck pendant full stop) under these conditions.
Larger, heavier aircraft have faster approach speeds and need considerably more runway to stop on. The CE-350 Corvalis mentioned above is going to require around 1500-2000 ft to land depending on ambient atmospheric conditions at sea level and calm winds, provided you can fly a short field right by the book. Even with a 30kt headwind, you're looking at an 1100 ft or so of ground roll, making an unarrested landing on a carrier impractical.
If there was no other option available to you, the deck hands could rig the barricade - a device which looks something like a tennis court net on steroids. Granted this device was designed to stop aircraft 10-20 times the weight of a Corvalis at nearly twice the approach speed and I don't know if the arresting gear attached to it have settings available for smaller lighter aircraft. If it doesn't, it could cause serious structural damage to your airplane, possibly making things worse. Maybe that's better than ditching alongside the ship, maybe not.
Another factor would be the sea itself. Carriers are not fixed airfields and in rough seas, the deck lists, pitches, and rolls considerably - think of a 100,000 ton cork bobbing in the ocean - making approaches quite dangerous for neophyte pilots. Rough swellscouldbreak the gear off or do other structural damage during a round out, or cause the pilot to strike the round out, etc. but if there was no other alternative, it's a risk you would have to take.
According to this page, the landing distance of the Cessna 350 is 2,350 feet.
A Nimitz class carrier deck is close to 1,000 feet long, and can travel about 30 knots. If they were going full speed into a headwind, it might be possible for them to stop in time, but it would be pretty scary, and if they ran off the end they would be run over by the carrier!
Note however that the airplane would pretty much have to be directly above it when it happened, and I doubt that the military would like a civilian aircraft being that close in the first place so it's very unlikely to ever even be an option unless it was setup in advance.
A different airplane like a Super Cub or as you pointed out a C-130, which can land in about 300 feet could do it pretty easily, even without the wind as long as they don't get caught up in the arresting gear.
I suppose if it were an emergency (Not like torn radio aerial, more like fuel leaking/low in the middle of the ocean) you could save yourself by ditching the plane, parachuting onto the aircraft carrier. You'd be arrested by armed navy men, but as long as you don't try to fight back, you'll be taken to wherever they're going in the brig - alive. (And not drowned, marooned, or eaten by sharks) This of course would be after you beg over the radio to land. If they say yes, you can save your plane, maybe buy some of their fuel, and take off for wherever you're going (or be arrested with your plane, get taken to wherever they're going, and pay for a hangar there while you figure things out. Not sure what navy protocol on this is.
An aircraft with a grappling hook could do it such as a Cessna which is capable of towing a banner. It wouldn't end well, but he could survive for sure. A Cessna 172 needs about 1,500 feet of runway for landing... depending on fuel load of course. Typical carrier landing zone is only about 1,000 feet. The grappling hook used to load a banner could reduce the inertia enough that the plane would not explode if it caught a landing wire, but I would not recommend it... it'd rip the plane apart. 'Traps' are practiced on land before on sea. It would be very difficult for a Cessna to capture the 'meatball' for an inexperienced pilot on an angle deck. Your runway is constantly drifting right.
The VS0 of a Cessna 172 (Down and dirty) is 54Mph, an Aircraft Carrier can easily do 46Mph if turned into the wind. A reduction of 8Mph within 1,000 feet is not impossible... so yes, it's possible.
